Spartans Down Flying L’s To Take Over First Place

With the opposition down to its final strike and the pressure at its peak, Jordan Hill stepped off the mound and gave himself a chance to focus.

The Hollywood Hills junior starting pitcher felt the weight of the moment, and he refused to let it catch up with him now.

From the dugout he could hear his teammates rooting him on, and he knew how badly they all wanted this victory.

The right-hander then stepped back on the hill and forced a flyout to his second baseman to secure the win, as the host Spartans downed Fort Lauderdale 4-2 in the District 6A-15 contest Thursday.

“I was very nervous, so I just had to step off and take another breath,” Hill admitted. “The more my team was cheering for me the more it hyped me up and I was more focused. I couldn’t do it without them and this is just the best feeling.”

Hollywood Hills improves to 3-3 overall, but more importantly the team moves into sole possession of first place in the district at 2-0.

“Those days coming here, those long Saturdays, everything is finally paying off,” Hills Manager Charlie Cardinale said. “It’s only one game and only one step. But this was a quality win, and this was a big game for us. The kids were focused, and they wanted to win this one. It was a great team effort, and I’m very proud of them.”

Hill (1-1) was a workhorse on the mound for the Spartans, going the distance on 85 pitches while scattering seven hits and a walk and recording three strikeouts to earn his first win of the season.

“He throws strikes,” Cardinale said. “He’s not overpowering, but he has great movement on the ball. He keeps us in the game.”

Hill’s older brother Cory also pitched for the team for many years, and the coaches have always joked with them that no one in their family can pitch past the fourth inning. So it was personally very rewarding for him to go the distance on Thursday and he was grateful that his coaches had the faith in him to leave him out there to the end.

“He told me he felt good and he deserved it,” Cardinale said.

The Flying L’s (1-4, 0-1) swept the Spartans last season in their newly formed district, and Thursday’s starter Brad Smith had been a huge part of that in throwing complete-game victories in both games.

But in this one, Smith was not his usual dominant self, and Fort Lauderdale struggled to put much offense together behind him.

“We didn’t do anything really well today,” Flying L’s Manager Terry Portice said. “I thought they had way more energy than we had. They did what they were supposed to do, and they deserved to win.”

Hills scored the decisive runs with a three-run third inning to break a 1-1 tie and take a lead it would not relinquish.

Anthony Devlin singled up the middle and reached second base when the shortstop tried to make a tough throw and the ball sailed wide of the first baseman. After Chris Hernandez walked, Jed Wilson singled to shallow right field to push Devlin home to put the Spartans on top.

Hernandez then scored the winning run on a wild pitch, and Frank Wells had a sacrifice flyout to push courtesy runner Eriel Morimon across the plate.

Trailing 1-0 heading into the bottom of the second, the Spartans got on the scoreboard when Tommy Grant crushed the first pitch he saw to deep left field for a triple and then scored when Wells drove the first pitch he saw into shallow right for an RBI single.

Smith took the loss to fall to 1-1 on the season, after tossing 73 pitches over five innings of work. He was also 2-for-3 at the plate, and came up with a nice defensive play in the first inning when he snared a line-drive and then doubled off a runner at first base.

After coming up with several big defensive plays at third base, Hunter Kay took over on the mound to pitch a scoreless inning of relief for the Flying L’s.

Even though the team’s ace did not have his usual dominant performance, it was the team’s approach at the plate that had Coach Portice even more frustrated.

“We were not very patient. They were facing a young man who is not going to blow anything by you,” Portice said. “They needed to sit back and let the ball travel, and then pull the trigger a little later. We had to try to hit the ball alley to alley here and we didn’t do a whole lot of that.”

Fort Lauderdale took an early 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning, as Smith had a two-out single with a liner to left field. Smith gave way to courtesy runner Tyler Jones, who then came in to score when Alec Bryan drove a pitch deep into the right-center field gap for a standup RBI double.

The Flying L’s battled back with another run in the sixth when Jason Jeffrey singled on a well-placed hit to the left field corner and then scored when Alex Honner drove the ball to nearly the exact same spot for an RBI double.

Honner went 2-for-3 on the day.

Fort Lauderdale also put runners on the corners in the top of the fourth, but third baseman Frank Wells snared a line drive and then raced back to the base for the double-play putout that ended the inning.

It was just one of many big plays on the day for the Spartans, who did not commit an error in the contest.

“Our infield has been together pretty much since they were sophomores,” Cardinale said. “This past week, it all started to just come together. Fort Lauderdale is a good quality team that we had not beaten these past few years.”

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